Page 240 of Hunters and Prey

Staring at him, I blanked for a second.

I couldn’t fail to hear the anger in his voice, or feel it in his light.

“I didn’t remember,” I told him.

“None of it?” Coming to a stop, he gestured around where we stood with a flick of his wrist and hand. “You don’t remember any of this back on our world?”

I stared at him for real, my mouth pursed.

“You think I’d lie to you?” I said. “About something like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

He scowled, staring at me. Then he clicked at me, glaring at the booths around us.

“No,” he said, exhaling in frustration. “I don’t think you’d lie. It’s just fucking weird, Miri. All of this. You’ve been coming here for a fucking year––”

“It’s probably only been a few weeks back home,” I reminded him. “A month at most.”

“And this is where you come?” he growled, gesturing around us again. “When our world is too much? When you get scared? You come here? To my damned cousin? To his wife?”

I stared at him.

Hearing the accusation fully that time, I was thrown.

“What?” I said.

Seeing something in my face, or maybe hearing it in my voice, he frowned, looking away. His light backed off, even as he clicked under his breath, shaking his head.

“Forget it,” he muttered. “I’m just… processing, Miri.”

He looked me over and pain coiled off his light, intense enough that my confusion only worsened. The anger and hurt left my light as I looked at him, feeling the pain continue to seethe there, growing worse as he looked at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, exhaling again. “I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me. I’m feeling possessive. And I know it makes no sense, that I have no reason to be, but I’m kind of pissed off at you.”

I just looked at him for a moment, feeling my chest tighten as I tried to decide what to say.

“Maybe it’s this place?” I suggested, taking his hand again. “Maybe you’re just processing, like you said? It’s a big shock, coming here.”

Pulling his eyes off me, he looked around the town, that faint frown still lingering at his sculpted lips.

“Maybe,” he said.

He sounded doubtful though.

I still didn’t really understand everything I could feel on his light. I knew he was shielding from me now, though. I also felt that anger at me he’d referenced.

“Maybe this shaman chick can tell us something,” Black said next.

I nodded, but didn’t speak.

I watched him stare out over the market.

That frown never really left his lips, or the harder look that had risen to his eyes, making them look like gold-tinted glass.

WE ENDED UP WHERE most of the town seemed to be, sitting on the soft grass, eating finger foods and drinking a spiced, wine-like drink above a long, rectangular stage. We didn’t talk much after that, but watched the free entertainment in the main square until the sun went down.

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